


five times she was afraid she was falling in love with him

by missymeggins



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22278130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 138





	five times she was afraid she was falling in love with him

1.

She finds herself tracing her fingers across his palm, declaring his heart as deep as the Pacific Ocean, and she honestly cannot tell why she’s doing it.

It had been so easy to make frivolous jokes about her own fortune and the absurdity of her marrying, having children, playing croquet. And he certainly hasn’t taken any of this seriously - so it should have been easy enough to simply continue the conversation in jest but instead she’s offering him her most sincere compliments for reasons entirely unknown to her. 

Of course, if you asked her she would tell you that there are only ever two reasons to flatter a man, the first being simply: to get what you need. 

But she has no need of anything from Jack in this moment. Truth be told she has no real need of him any context. Certainly their partnership makes it easier for her to solve cases and what might have begun as amusement over his annoyance with her has shifted to genuine enjoyment in working together, but she stills knows perfectly well that she can do her job without him. 

It’s not _need_ that keeps bringing her back to him.

So that leaves her with the only other possibility for her behaviour: genuine romantic feelings - something she had sworn off after Paris and had certainly not expected to find in Melbourne with a police detective of all people. 

He refuses to take her compliments seriously, joking about martinis instead, and so she shakes off the feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach as she ran her fingers across his palm and the tightness in her chest that had taken hold as she looked directly into his eyes. 

It would be a mistake to imagine that love is in their fortunes together. 

And Phryne Fisher doesn’t make mistakes. 

2\. 

In the wake of her earnest compliments, she finds herself returning to the simplicity of her former suggestive flirtations instead. Sincerity is overrated when it comes to men as far as she’s concerned and she does so delight in teasing him.

It proves remarkably easy with him in her room in a seaside town, glass of champagne in her hand as he discusses the case.

“My darling,” he reads seriously.

“Glad I’m forgiven,” she teases. 

“On our golden anniversary,” he continues, studiously ignoring her.

“Has it been that long,” she quips, smile easy on her lips.

But still, he remains the serious policeman and his determination not to respond to her silliness means she’s all the more delighted to be able to pull a piece of evidence from her cleavage and hand it to him, thinking surely that will warrant a reaction at least. 

But he merely observes the paper reading studiously, “Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.”

“I preferred my darling,” she says archly. 

She tells herself it’s all in jest, all for the fun of trying to fluster him or watch the blush rise on his cheeks as it did when he saw her Rene’s portrait of her. Only he doesn’t rise to the bait and in fact seems entirely impervious to her. 

But most galling of all is that there’s an undercurrent of sincerity beneath it all, try as she might to pretend there isn’t, because there’s something about the sound of ‘my darling’ from his lips that should make her want to run away from the domesticity of it all. 

And yet.

3\. 

The disconcerting thing about Jack’s presence in her life - or hers in his she supposes might be more accurate - is that she develops a sense of normality with him that makes her acutely aware of changes in his demeanour. 

“Why ask my opinion if you're not willing to listen to it?” he asks at the scene of a motor crash, without a trace of his usual warmth and it positively flusters her.

“Because… that usually doesn’t bother you!” she finds herself exclaiming in frustration. Everything about his behaviour has been off since she arrived at the scene and she cannot fathom a reason for it.

It irks her not to know things and she finds it irks her all the more not to know things about Jack Robinson. But when she does finally piece it together after more than a day of uncharacteristically surly behaviour from him - _You thought it was me_ \- it opens up a door she has been trying so studiously to keep closed. 

And maybe she could have nudged it closed again by ignoring the whole thing but he throws it wide open, hat in hand as he stands in her doorway the following night and tells her, “When I thought it was you in that wreckage...I found it unbearable.”

And maybe she could have at least found a way to deal with his feelings while continuing to work together only he’s already decided that he can’t. 

It hits her for six and she hears confusion in her own voice as she tries to make sense of what he’s trying to say. 

“So you’re giving up me instead?” 

He offers nothing; no comfort, no apology, no alternative and so she presses on offering him more honesty than she ever has before.

“What we do best, us, together. You’d sacrifice that? If you did that Jack, I would feel like it was you lying in that wreckage. Please can you think about that.” 

She wants to hide from the sound of her own voice, the way it pleads, but she can’t because what she feels is desperate. He’s blindsided her and she had never imagined he could - or would - do that. 

He has become, after all, the most solid part of her life. 

And if she’s honest with herself she’s begun to imagine that here, at last, was a man who could never hurt her. 

(She doesn’t even count the dalliances. They are dalliances for precisely that reason; she is in total control and while she certainly feels affection for many of them, it’s never enough to be hurt by anything they do or choose.)

But hurt her this does and she cannot hide from that. 

4\. 

“You’ve really made things worse for Jack you know,” Rosie accuses her, a barb that should roll off her back yet somehow crawls under her skin instead. 

It settles there, sharp and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore. 

And later, when she watches Rosie fall apart in Jack’s arms she feels the very worst parts of her rear up; petty jealousy, disdain, resentment. She has lost nothing in this, while Rosie has lost a fiancé and a father and probably her reputation as well. She has every right to fall apart and yet Phryne can’t stand to see her do it in Jack’s arms. 

She leaves him with her and tells herself that perhaps Rosie was right, and perhaps Jack deserves more than the trouble she causes for him.

But he arrives at her door asking, “Is it too late?” 

(Of the hour and nothing more she tells herself.) 

“Never,” she tells him.

(Of the hour and everything - _anything_ \- else.) 

He offers an explanation though he owes her nothing. “She just needed some company.” 

And she offers him an out, though it pains her to do so. “She needed you, Jack Robinson. The man who always does the right thing. The noble thing.” 

He doesn’t take it though and his eyes don’t leave hers as he tells her, “Not always Miss Fisher.” 

It’s just the slightest shift of his body but she knows this is it, the moment that they finally give in and suddenly she’s terrified of how much she wants him, of how entirely different it feels to the wanting of any other man she’s stood this close to in this past year. 

Only Aunt Prudence steals the moment from them with her impeccable timing and disapproving gaze. 

But stolen or not, it’s a turning point she can’t return from.

5\. 

Compton sees it - that Jack is _something._

(Maybe everything.)

“Too much ballast for liftoff,” she tells him, determined to sound as though she’s entirely unaffected by that truth.

“Yours or his?” he asks and she answers, “probably both,” but she’s not sure that’s really true. She suspects they would lift off just fine if only she would give him a clear signal instead of dancing around it. It isn’t like her to dance but there’s so much uncertainty where Jack’s concerned. She doesn’t like uncertainty. She doesn’t like to change and she fears that to lift off with Jack would be proof that she has - and it has been entirely against her will.

So she tells herself that _too much ballast_ is a decision and indulges with Compton because it’s simple - an easy habit to fall back on when moving forward with Jack seems so impossible to actually accomplish.

But when Jack’s eyes lock on her, bare feet next to Compton, she is filled with regret. It turns out that habit, the simplicity of pleasure, is not worth the pain she hears in his voice when he tells her, “It’s a police matter Miss Fisher - it’s none of your concern. You keep those eyes turned skyward.” 

And this, this is exactly the reason she has always sworn not to commit herself to one man, any man. She has never wanted to bear the weight of anyone else’s feelings. But somehow without even committing she has managed to hurt him. 

She wants to damn him for falling in love with her. What a stupid, foolish thing for him to do. Most men know better. 

(In truth, most men don’t actually care; they maintain the illusion of amorous affection but it’s only because they don’t know how to treat a woman who so openly enjoys sex. They think the illusion is what grants them access to her bed, but really it’s the thing that has her dismissing them all the sooner.) 

But she can’t because she has no right to assume he’s actually done anything of the sort. 

And maybe, more than that, she can’t damn him for his foolishness because she’s too busy damning herself for her own. 

6\. (And one time she was no longer afraid) 

He comes all the way to the airfield even though she’s about to fly away from him and she didn’t say goodbye. 

He comes all the way to the airfield and she finds herself unable to simply walk to him. She actually runs through a damn field to stand in front of him and for the first time she’s not afraid of how he makes her feel. 

“Come after me,” she tells him and whether it’s a request or a demand even she doesn’t quite know. 

“What did you say?” he questions her even though she knows he heard it. 

But she can’t keep the smile off her face as she repeats it, “It was a romantic overture. Come after me Jack Robinson.” 

Because she’s ready now to acknowledge the truth that’s been staring her in the face for far too long: that she, the Honourable Phryne Fisher, has fallen hopelessly in love with Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.

And she doesn’t regret it for a second.


End file.
